Tuning In: ‘Sox Guy’ beaming again in Florida

Dave Lionett served Worcester as a state representative for six years and has worked as a financial planner for 47, but people who meet him for the first time often know him for a different reason.

“Oh, you’re the Red Sox guy,” they say.

Lionett, 67, has reported from Red Sox spring training on Worcester radio stations for close to two decades. After taking last spring off, he’s back at it again this year, joining Hank Stolz on WCRN (830 AM) from Fort Myers, Fla., at 12:40 p.m. each Monday.

Lionett began filing daily reports for WTAG (580 AM) in the early 1990s and over the years also worked out agreements with stations in Marlboro, Milford, Manchester, N.H., and Fort Myers.

Lionett’s mother, Pauline, discovered many years ago how devoted his listeners could be when a fellow parishioner at the First Baptist Church in Worcester approached her.

“I just love your son,” she exclaimed. “I take a shower with him every morning.”

When WTAG stopped carrying the Red Sox games a few years ago, he moved on to WCRN, appearing on Peter Blute’s morning show each weekday. The two had no problem talking Red Sox baseball more than a decade after Lionett lost a congressional race against Blute, his fellow Republican.

“Politics have strange bedfellows and sports have nothing to do with politics,” Lionett said.

Lionett, a state rep in the early 1970s and again in the early 1990s, used to report from Fort Myers while on vacation, but he moved there three years ago and lives in a condo beside a golf course. His Red Sox mailbox elicits cheers from Sox fans, but jeers from Yankees fans.

Lionett’s radio gig is a hobby, not a job. He’s owned Red Sox season tickets since 1968 when they cost him $10 each compared to $130 this year and he’s missed only one playoff game and two opening days since. His radio work grants him access to the Red Sox players that make his friends jealous.

“It’s fun. I enjoy it and it keeps me tied to the community I grew up in,” said Lionett, who grew up in Holden.

Lionett doesn’t do it for the money. In fact, most of the time he gets paid with gift certificates to restaurants, package stores, golf courses and car washes. That’s fine with him.

When the Red Sox hired Grady Little to replace the fired Joe Kerrigan as manager during spring training in 2002, Lionett broke the story on a radio station in Manchester, which allowed him to break into Rush Limbaugh’s show.

“Not many people get to interrupt Rush Limbaugh,” Lionett said. “He’s a lot more important than I’ll ever be.”

WTAG decided to wait until Limbaugh’s show ended before allowing Lionett to go on the air.

A few years ago, Lionett provided color for the handful of Red Sox spring training games carried by the ESPN radio affiliate in Fort Myers. The broadcasts lasted only one year.

“In Florida,” Lionett said, “a lot of people like to go to the games, but there’s no interest in people listening to them. If you’re not at the games, you’re playing golf or tennis or sitting at the beach.”

Lionett plans to keep reporting from spring training for as long as he can. He likes being “the Red Sox Guy.”

The Celtics are on pace for the highest rated of their 30 seasons on local cable television.

Prior to last night, Celtics games on Comcast SportsNet were averaging a 4.6 rating, or about 180,000 New England homes. That’s a 41 percent increase over the 3.3 average rating posted through this time last season. The Celtics drew a record rating of 3.5 during the 2008-09 season, the year after they captured their 17th NBA championship.

Since CSN purchased the cable home of the Celtics in 2007, ratings for the Celtics have increased 176 percent.

This season, CSN has already set all-time highs for a single regular-season game telecast (7.5 on Nov. 17 vs. Washington, yes, Washington) and a season-opener telecast (5.6 vs. Cavs, Oct. 27), as well as pregame and postgame shows. CSN may have drawn even higher numbers, but it doesn’t televise any of the Celtics games against Miami or Lakers this year. The national networks have all those games.

CSN has out-rated ESPN and TNT by 88 percent in New England in the 11 Celtics games they have shared.

NBC has reacquired rights to the Belmont this year and will televise all three legs of horse racing’s Triple Crown. NBC was the last network to televise all three legs in 2005, but the Belmont moved to ABC in 2006.

NBC will own the rights to the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont through 2015. The Derby will be run May 7, the Preakness May 14 and the Belmont June 11.